Transform disparate enterprise data into actionable business intelligence
Put timely, mission-critical information in the hands of employees across your organization using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and the comprehensive information in this unique resource. Delivering Business Intelligence with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 shows you, step-by-step, how to author, customize, and distribute information that will give your company the competitive edge. It's all right here--from data mining, warehousing, and scripting techniques to MDX queries, KPI analysis, and the all-new Unified Dimensional Model. Real-world examples, start-to-finish exercises, and downloadable code throughout illustrate all of the integration, analysis, and reporting capabilities of SQL Server 2005.
A great walkthrough of the MS BI stack Download the sample database. Sit down and fire up BIDS. Read and follow the directions. You'll be a better person for it.
Well, you'll know more about the Microsoft BI stack anyway. It's a great way to get in and see every major (and most minor) feature of the stack.
Not As Useful If You Already Work In BI I've already got experience with tools such as Cognos, ProClarity, Informatica and others. I bought this book to figure out how to use Microsoft's BI tools.
The book really is a case study book where you are the business analyst, the data modeler, the systems analyst the ETL guy and the report developer. It is written with a "learn by doing" premise. If you haven't done all of the business requirements exercises, data modeler tasks, etc... you won't be able to do the Integration Services exercises or the MDX exercises in the book. In other words, you must 1) read the book in the order of its chapters and 2) do the exercises in the chapter order.
Additionally, many chapters are a review of the theory (like snowflake vs. star), business requirements gathering and why you have data marts stuff like that. If you already know how to do these things, or you know that you don't have to take on that role, then you probably won't find this book as useful.
Great candidate for a BI textbook! I have chosen this book as a textbook for my graduate class in Business School, after sampling over a dozen BI textbooks in the market. This book is a good blend of BI concepts, managerial applications, as well as hands-on skills. Most of the other textbooks are either too dry or too technical. This book gives you an overview of BI components, processes, and applications in business world. The step-by-step learn-by-doing exercises are particularly helpful for students who might otherwise be intimidated by the technology. Supplimenting this book with another more conceptual/managerial type of BI book will be perfect for Business school students.
Good but not great This book is an introduction to the Business Intelligence suite of programs that come with SQL Server 2005: Integration Services, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services. The book takes a learn-by-doing approach where the author provides step-by-step instructions for creating and populating data marts as well as extracting information from them. Since this is a broad topic, the coverage is shallow but it does provide an adequate introduction to these products. However, there are numerous issues with this book which you should be aware of before buying it.
The first five chapters set the stage by explaining what business intelligence is and why it is important to an organization. It should have been condensed to about ten pages rather than sixty. The chapter on Integration Services had a nice learn-by-doing exercise but the bulk of the chapter simply lists the various tasks available. The same info (organized the same way) is easily available from Books Online with a lot more detail.
The author walks you through creating an Analysis Services cube from the bottom up (with an existing database) and the top down (using the cube wizard to auto-generate the underlying schema). However, the author does this in the following order:
1) Create database schema for the manufacturing database. 2) Use wizard to create cube and schema for the sales database. 3) Use SSIS to populate most of the manufacturing dimesion tables. 4) Add a second fact table to the manufacturing database. 5) Populate the manufacturing fact tables and the remaining dimension table. 6) Create cube for manufacturing database. 7) Finish the cube by adding additional/calculated measures.
Of course, these exercises are sprinkled throughout 200 pages of text with no easy way to reference them. You may have noticed that the Sales DM is never populated. Even though you are walked through the other processes step-by-step, he mentions in a single paragraph at the end of chapter eight that you need to download some projects from the book's website to populate the Sales datamart. However, no link is provided and there are some oddities in the files provided. For example, the SalesDM backup produces an eight gig log file, presumably because they had the database in full recovery mode when populating it. Fortunately he provides the SSIS project so you can get around that issue.
Also, there are a number of errors, particularly in the code, that are not listed in the errata. For example, '<' on page 434 should be '>' in both cases while '[Day]' on page 445 should be '[Month]'. The code doesn't break, but the results are not what the text describes. Finally, there is no apparant way to submit new errata on the book's website.
Despite these shortcomings, this is a good book if you are a complete newcomer to Microsoft BI and need an overview of all three products but are not after in depth information on any of them.
Great Book The book provides a thoughtful informative view of how to use the Business Intelligence features of Visual Studio and SQL Server. Each chapter appropriately builds on the previous information.
The reader is presented with an introduction to Business Intelligence. Next, the construction of a cube using Analysis Services is explained and later the use of Integration Services is illustrated. Lastly, working the data with MDX queries is discussed and then the final data is displayed with Reporting Services.
I recommend the book to beginners and intermediate developers.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
